MortalSorcery/Nature

The Path of Nature

The Path of Nature is one of the most commonly practised across Creation, since the peasantry often have a deep and abiding connection with nature. Even on the Blessed Isle where the Immaculate Order holds sway there are sorcerers with some small ability along these lines, improving crops, controlling rampaging animals and generally making life that little bit easier. Use of this Path is part sorcery and part spirit bargain, since the little gods guard their prerogatives jealously and it is an extremely foolish, or very powerful, sorcerer who tries to bypass them.

System

Nature wizardry can perform a number of useful effects, but the three main tasks that they are most often called upon for are listed below.

Animal Control

Standard test: Wits + Occult: The world is a dangerous place for mortals. If it’s not wandering undead or rampaging Fair Folk, it’s a Dragon-Blood with an attitude or an Anathema that wants you to join her cause. And then there’s nature, packs of hungry wolves, yeddim stampedes and marauding strix. It is here that followers of the Path of Nature excel, controlling the wilder side of the world, calming angry bears or discouraging flocks of birds from landing on a newly planted corn crop.

||Size||Cost||Behavioural Change||Cost|| ||Rabbit||0||Minor||0|| ||Dog||1||Major||1|| ||Horse||2||Severe||2|| ||Elephant||3||Extreme||3||

Fertility

Standard test: Intelligence + Occult (1 Willpower, Difficulty 3): Someone versed in the Path of Nature can drastically improve the fertility of the soil, allowing a decent crop to grow in barren earth, or a bumper crop to develop in soil of normal fertility. This effect can also improve the chances of animals falling pregnant or those of a couple wishing to conceive a child. The sorcerer pays a point of Willpower and then makes his Occult test. Extra successes on the test increase the overall effect of the magic, depending on the circumstances. Please note that this usage does not make the impossible possible, a couple who are incapable of conceiving a child, for example, will not suddenly have a baby as a result of this magic being used.

Weather Control

Standard test: Intelligence + Occult (Difficulty 2): Potentially the most dangerous practice of the Path of Nature, a sufficiently powerful sorcerer can bring rain where there was none, calm a raging hurricane or call snow from the mountain heights. Use of this effect is always a ritual that takes about an hour to complete. At the end of this time, if the Occult test was a success, the sorcery is unleashed and the required effect will happen as requested. The difficulty modifiers shown below serve another purpose, since they also represent the chance that a local weather spirit will notice the sorcerer. The Storyteller rolls a number of dice equal to the total cost of the spell. If this test is successful then the ritual has been noticed, although the precise effect is determined by the Storyteller, the severity is indicated by the number of successes.

||Degree||Cost||Speed||Cost||Area||Cost|| ||Minor||0||Within a week||0||Village||0|| ||Major||1||Within a day||1||Town / City||1|| ||Severe||2||Within an hour||2||Local region||2|| ||Extreme||3||Instant (<1 minute)||3||Country||3||

Example:Aiethen is trying to call some rain for the village of Stone, which has been labouring under a drought for the last month. He decides to call for a storm that will arrive within a day and blanket the area with enough rain to restock the village’s cisterns and give the parched earth a chance to recover. The Storyteller decides that this is a severe change to the local weather, meaning that three dice (two for the severe change and one for the rapidity of the alteration) are subtracted from his Intelligence + Occult pool. Aiethen conducts his ritual and at the end of an hour he rises tired and worn, but knowing that the rain will soon come. At the same time the Storyteller rolls 3 dice (equal to the difficulty modifiers) and gets a single success – a nearby air elemental has noticed Aiethen’s sorcery and is headed towards him, more curious than offended.